Greenwald: Hastert is a victim of over-criminalization

[Cali_Democrat]

DENNY HASTERT IS CONTEMPTIBLE, BUT HIS INDICTMENT EXEMPLIFIES AMERICA’S OVER-CRIMINALIZATION PATHOLOGY
BY GLENN GREENWALD

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Hastert was indicted for two alleged felonies: 1) withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments; and 2) lying to the FBI about the purpose of those withdrawals once they detected them and then inquired with him. That’s it. For those venial acts, he faces five years in a federal prison on each count.

<...>

Over-criminalization breeds injustice and abuse of power. As the New York Times’s Adam Liptak reported in a great 2008 article on the uniquely oppressive U.S. penal state: “people who commit nonviolent crimes in the rest of the world are less likely to receive prison time and certainly less likely to receive long sentences.” Moreover, “Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.”

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In the indictment, the DOJ made the decision not to expressly specify the “past misconduct” Hastert sought to conceal. Nonetheless, federal law enforcement officials apparently spent the day running around leaking to media outlets what the indictment worked hard to insinuate: that “Hastert paid a man to conceal sexual misconduct while the man was a student at the high school where Hastert taught.” So this seems to be a case where federal prosecutors wanted to punish someone for a crime they couldn’t prove he committed, so instead reached into their bottomless bag of offenses to turn him into a criminal for something else.

The whole piece:

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/29/denny-hastert-highly-unsympathetic-face-americas-criminalization-pathology/

[still_one]

1. Easy to ignore the fact that he molested a kid I guess as far as greenwald is concerned

[DisgustipatedinCA]

8. Aaaand, you guessed wrong. Try reading the article.

[still_one]

11. Because this is an on going investigation and I strongly suggest that he waits to see if more

Charges aren't coming.

And because additional charges were not named does not mean they are not being pursued.

He trivializes this charge against asshat, even though it was asshats work that led to it.

Also, lying to the FBI is not trivial. Obviously, Greenwald thinks that felony is trivial

[YOHABLO]

2. Well the student holds some responsibility in that he is blackmailing Hastert. Instead of going to

the authorities over the matter.

[Warpy]

3. I agree, in a way

but it's his own fault. A lot of those structured withdrawal laws were passed when he was in office and they wanted to tighten down on drug money.

However, he got those laws pushed through and now he's been hoisted on his own petard.

The kid(s) he diddled don't seem to be in a big hurry to try to prosecute, especially since there used to be a statute of limitations regarding sex crimes against children and they likely didn't realize it was repealed last year.

Still, I can't shed too many tears over criminalizing Hastert. He's likely the first of a long line of Republican hypocrites to be caught by what we told them at the time was-ta da- bad law.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Get your pop corn and drinks,

the late night prono show is about to start.

[PowerToThePeople]

5. I happen to agree with some of this this.

It should not be a crime to withdraw your own money. Lying to the FBI, that is another issue altogether.

[frazzled]

6. The crime wasn't that he was withdrawing money

It was that he was structuring the cash withdrawals to evade the reporting established by long-standing laws (not recent ones, as many are claiming: the Bank Secrecy Act that requires banks to file reports on cash withdrawals over $10K was passed in 1970). He took out $952,000 in cash in increments to specifically avoid the reporting: that's a scheme. And then he lied to FBI agents about it. Two crimes, neither of which were about withdrawing the money per se.

Among other things, Hastert has been charged with one count of structuring currency transactions to evade currency transaction reports.

Specifically, according to the FBI's website, Hastert was charged with structuring the withdrawal of $952,000 in cash to evade the requirement that banks report cash transactions of more than $10,000. Hastert started structuring his cash withdrawals in increments of less than $10,000 around July 2012, the FBI said.

You can write a check or cashier's check for $20K to pay for a new car and nobody will say boo about it. But if you withdraw it in cash, a report will be filed. Why? Because criminals use cash to launder money to hide crimes. Even if a report is filed, it's not a crime to withdraw the large amount: 15 million currency transaction reports are filed each year, only a much smaller amount of them being deemed "suspicious." Hell, you can withdraw $952,000 in cash and if you're not laundering it for a drug ring, you're fine.

Glenn Greenwald was a lawyer. He should know the law better. For more info, see:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-dennis-hastert-bank-laws-0530-biz-20150529-story.html

[kcr]

7. I think he does know. He counts on people not knowing.

The problem is you can point these things out and people still won't change their minds. There's already an awful thread about this as you can imagine.

[PowerToThePeople]

12. I am saying it is my money

It should not be a crime to withdraw it in any way I choose.

Big brother can fuck off imo.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Yes and no

what he did with the USPA (which by the way I have concluded he never read the bill he pushed, which is hardly breaking news in the US Congress, they rarely, if ever read the legislation) is to tighten those requirements much further due to money laundering, drug cartels and Al Qaida.

Just so we all are in the right page on this.



But serious, who could be this stupid not to know what is in the law they shepherd through Congress. I am sure the staff would not make this mistake.

[still_one]

14. Also I suspect other charges will be forth coming. Because they haven't filed other charges yet

doesn't mean they won't

[DisgustipatedinCA]

9. Love the Yellow Journalism replacement headline you used.

No, really. I think you have a big future.

[Marr]

10. +1, at least it's more subtle than 'Greenwald defends pederast' or whatever that sleaze was earlier.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. And keep in mind, Greenwald isn't even the main target

Ed Snowden is. Attacking Greenwald serves the dual purposes of revenge (because they HATE HATE HATE him) and more obliquely, trying to discredit Greenwald so that others eventually conclude that he must also be lying with regard to Snowden. Happily, our lil psycho ward is limited to just 6 or 8 patients.

[Jesus Malverde]

16. A thread about greenwald wouldn't be complete without...

JM

[DisgustipatedinCA]

17. DU Rec. YouBetterBelieveIt. Et cetera

[struggle4progress]

18. Tune in next week for another episode of -- "Libertarian Tragedies"